UCHealth Urges Steamboat Residents to Prepare for Early Fire Season

The air in Steamboat Springs tastes like ash and old rain. It hangs heavy over the Yampa River, sticking to windows and settling into the creases of jackets left on porch rails. Jason Eisenbach doesn’t need to look at a weather map to know the danger is rising. He feels it in his bones, standing in northern Colorado as drought grips the state like a fist.

“Unfortunately, you’re not immune anywhere in the state,” Eisenbach said. He’s the manager of emergency preparedness for UCHealth’s northern Colorado region, and he’s watching an early fire season unfold with the weary familiarity of someone who has seen this movie before.

The dry winter didn’t just crack the soil; it primed the landscape for disaster. Now, wind-whipped flames are destroying properties and filling communities with smoke that stings the eyes and lingers in the lungs. Emergency officials are urging folks here, especially those tucked into mountain communities, to stop assuming they have time. They don’t.

Being prepared means planning ahead while the skies are still blue. It means staying calm when the sirens start, and it means knowing exactly where your important documents are when you have five minutes to grab them. Eisenbach’s advice isn’t abstract theory. It’s a checklist for survival, written in the language of people who live here.

Start with the boring stuff that becomes vital when chaos hits. Licenses. Passports. Banking information. Put them in a safe place now, not when the smoke is already pouring into your hallway. Laptops and cellphones need chargers ready to go. Know your passwords. If you can’t access online insurance info or bank accounts because you forgot the code, you’re vulnerable.

Review your homeowner’s insurance. Really look at it. Know what your agent’s contact number is. Know if your policy covers evacuation costs, hotel stays, or just the structure of your home. The gap between what you think you’re covered for and what you actually are can be the difference between sleeping in a motel or sleeping in your car.

Medications matter more than most people realize. Do you have enough to last several weeks? If you’re displaced, can you easily renew prescriptions in a town you’ve never visited before? Don’t wait until the pharmacy is closed and the roads are blocked.

Then there’s the equipment that keeps people alive. Portable nebulizers. Oxygen tanks. Dialysis machines. If the power goes out — and it will, if the fire is close enough — do you have backup batteries? A generator? A plan to move to an alternate location if the grid fails? These aren’t luxuries. They’re lifelines.

Feinsinger wrote in the Steamboat Pilot that experts recommend asking hard questions before you need to leave. Do you have medical conditions that require extra time? If you don’t own a car, do family and friends know how to get you out? Do your children know what to do if they’re at school or camp while you’re stuck in traffic?

It’s easy to assume you have more than one evacuation route. It’s harder to verify it when the primary road is choked with panicked drivers and falling trees.

Routt County makes signing up for emergency alerts easy. It takes a minute. The state of Colorado has websites updated with fire and weather conditions. Federal emergency alerts are just a click away. But technology is only as good as the person checking it.

Stand there long enough and you can see why Eisenbach is worried. The grass is brown. The trees are brittle. The wind is picking up from the west, carrying the scent of pine needles burning in a distant canyon.

People in the valley are packing boxes they might never unpack. They’re checking their smoke detectors one last time. They’re wondering if the insurance agent will actually answer the phone when the call comes at 3 a.m.

The fire doesn’t care about your plans. It only cares about fuel. And right now, Colorado is full of it.